Editorial Tuesday February 25, 2014.

Peter Jackson, editor, The Northland Age

IF there is one thing that underpins much of what troubles society today it is a lack of respect. We see it all about us every day, in the people who appear before the courts, children who at best defy and at worst abuse their elders, in the way people relate to each other and the property of others, and most appallingly in recent times the abusing and alleged assaulting of a kaumatua who supported Ngati Kuri's signing of its deed of settlement with the Crown.

It's a process that has evolved slowly, and will not be easily or quickly fixed, if it can be fixed. And that won't start until people who do not appreciate a lack of respect stop accepting it as some sort of inevitable by-product of social 'progress'.

The development of respect for others is a virtue that should begin at birth, and can only be taught by those who practise it. It is futile to demand a standard of behaviour that has hitherto not been witnessed by or expected of a teenager, but even so there should be a point in adult life where we know we are behaving badly. For some that point never comes.

There is probably little point in harking back to how things used to be, but society was very different when the writer was growing up. In those days, the 1950s and '60s, children were taught to show respect, especially for authority figures, a term that not only covered the likes of teachers and policemen but all adults. In Kaitaia any adult was entitled to chastise any young miscreant, and could usually be relied upon to report misdeeds to said child's parents. And in that event the parents would unfailingly side with the informant.

Children who misbehaved, and the term misbehaviour was interpreted much more comprehensively than it is now, could expect punishment rather than sympathy, and were doomed to disappointment if they expected their parents to defend them. For the same reason children who received corporal punishment at school tended not to say anything when they got home, for fear of getting a second helping. The days of parents blindly sticking up for their offspring against allcomers were unimagined.

It wasn't only children for whom the night had a thousand eyes though. In the early 1970s the Kaitaia Hotel's public bar was effectively policed by older patrons, who would have a quiet word with anyone who misbehaved. If that didn't work they would show them the door, and peace would be restored.

Those older patrons were confident that the respect they were owed, not only by virtue of their age but also their behaviour, was all the protection they needed against the younger generation. They also believed that they had a role to play in maintaining order, not only in the public bar at the Kaitaia Hotel but within society in general. Those who stepped out of line understood that, and respected those who were owed respect.

Try that now and see what happens.

Not that the older generation always got it right. One recalls an occasional burning sense of injustice when an adult pulled rank without understanding all the circumstances, but the message was an important one.

Those who misbehaved were offending against the community - we're talking here about heinous crimes like riding a bike on a footpath or liberating a couple of oranges from someone's tree, not abusing, threatening or assaulting people, smashing property, stealing or indulging in drugs in a public place. 'Misbehaviour' once began at a much lower level than it does now. And while the kids of the 1950s and '60s could not have imagined some of the stuff their children and grandchildren would get up to, perhaps worse behaviour was thus nipped in the bud.

It's all very different now, for any number of reasons. One of those is social welfare, which has done a magnificent job of destroying the nuclear family, and continues to deprive thousands of children of the family structure that would once have been one of their most valuable assets. Another is a couple of generations of politicians who have taught us that we as individuals are more important than society as a whole.

We now talk about children's rights. Once these were taken as read - every child had, and still has, the right to be born into and raised by a family where it is loved, fed, clothed, educated (by the state and by its parents), and to be given every opportunity to fulfil its potential. There was a time when we didn't need to be told this. Now kids have the same rights as adults, such as the right to privacy (that wouldn't have got anyone far 50 years ago), regardless of whether anyone ever teaches them how adults are expected to behave, and the obligations that accompany those rights. So the problem grows exponentially, as children who were never taught how to behave produce children they can't or won't teach how to behave, and those children will inevitably produce another generation.

We can be confident that the confrontation between a police officer, a former police jailer and a group of feral children at Kaitaia's skate bowl a couple of Sundays ago will not be the last incident of its kind - it certainly wasn't the first - and whatever is done to control behaviour at the skate bowl will at best be only partially effective.

The council can do what it likes to solve the problem, including fencing it (fencing the little cretins in and leaving them there until they are claimed by their parents has appeal), but anyone who thinks these kids are going to stop burgling, drinking, using illicit drugs and assaulting police because the skate bowl's locked at night is dreaming. Fencing, moving or closing the skate bowl will only penalise the kids who want to go there to skate.

Not much a of penalty though, given that most kids of that ilk reportedly wouldn't go near the place for fear of being abused, assaulted or robbed. The same applies to a good many adults.

The police in Kaitaia will say, not unreasonably, that they can do their job much more effectively with the active support of the community. That means not turning a blind eye to bad behaviour but intervening, as an immediate form of assistance to a victim and a longer-term approach to deterring crime. What they might not understand is the level of fear that now exists, and the view that what other people do is their business. Where once bad behaviour attracted an immediate and effective response, now it is tolerated because good people are afraid for their own well-being, or don't believe they have a right to get involved.

Thus kids who aren't taught at home to respect others don't get the message outside their family either. They grow up thinking they have the right to do as they wish, and have plenty of adult examples to support that view. All we can do perhaps is ensure that our children and grandchildren don't grow up with that set of values. And that, whatever some politicians will tell you, is the real source of advantage in this country. Kids who grow up respectful of others will have a huge advantage over those who do not, regardless of their household income or anything else that politicians love to measure.